How do I select a new IT service and

solutions provider?
How do I find a provider?
 Word of Mouth - The best form of form of advertising is always word of mouth. Who have you

heard of in a positive light?

 Internet Web Search – This is effective in finding those that advertise well, but not necessarily

the best company.

 Networking Groups – For some this could be scary, but most network groups have their own

website that you can search and find companies. It can be a good place to start your search.

 Phone a Friend – The IT community isn’t huge, if you know anyone in the industry (even if they

work for a large enterprise) they may know someone or heard good things about a company.

Ask!

What should we be looking for?

7 Things to look for

 Industry
The should know your industry to a reasonable extent. They should be able to
make recommendations that can help you achieve your goals. Even bring new
technologies you may not have heard of to the table that can help your company
 Contracts
Some companies do month to month so you can leave at any time. Some do
long term contracts of 2-3 or more years with incentive discounts. You need to pick a
company that you are comfortable with, keep in mind long term contracts benefit the IT
company especially if you’re not happy. 30-90 Day evergreen contracts are a way to get
you in the door and stop looking in hopes that you will be happy “enough” to not go
looking later. Don’t settle for “happy enough”
 Remote Management and Monitoring
Some companies get you into an inexpensive “Monitoring and management”
service that isn’t proactive, just a monthly manual check-in (sometimes they get lucky
 and see something, sometimes not). These companies usually specialize in break\fix,
and for some this is a perfect fit.
While others are more thorough, monitoring things nearly live, and are
proactive in being able to notify their clients of impending issues and outages.
Still others go to a Pre-Proactive approach with monitoring and preventative
maintenance, fixing problems before you know it is been a problem and thereby
allowing you to keep focus and stay more productive.

Productivity is a hard metric to measure in small business, but very important in this
part of your decision. This is a hard area to make a choice in, and it should not be the
only area that you base your decision from, but certainly an area to be very aware and
sensitive to.
 Experience, Certifications, and on-going training
As any business owner knows, experience is very important. As an IT company
tasked with hiring new staff its important to know that certifications are only a check
box, and while they carry some weight, there are ways to “cheat” the system and obtain
them. So experience is an important metric to consider. This is often the difference
between a technician with limited knowledge, and an engineer with years of problem
solving experience who are learning new technologies.
Ongoing Training is also important, new technologies are constantly emerging.
It’s important to know which ones are beneficial to your industry\company and which
ones are simply a cash black hole.
 Security
Digital Security is not optional anymore. It is a constant looming threat. The
company you select should be extremely concerned with meeting your budget while
bringing about the best security possible. This should include a firewall, anti-virus, anti-
malware, anti-spam and e-mail security, Secure DNS at the very minimum. If your
industry has specific regulations the company should be able to craft a plan to meet and
exceed those regulations.
Many companies suggest firewalls, but don’t set them up correctly. Check to
see if they provide regulated security services such as HIPPA or PCI compliance.
Keep in mind, when it comes to data security, NOTHING is 100% guaranteed, so
if a company promises or guarantees you can’t be breached or infected, walk away.
They either are lying or don’t know what they’re doing. (Note: this includes apple
systems as well)
 Response times
Any contract should have a clear response time indicated in your agreement
(SLA – Service Level Agreement), an industry standard is 4 business hours. This means
that from the point they receive your support ticket, they have 4 business hours to
begin work. It’s important to note, that some companies will state a vague SLA so that
their automated reply to an e-mail is what meets that response time, don’t get caught in
that trap.
 Look for companies who don’t only state they will meet their SLA, but have
metrics to show them doing exactly that.
 Cost
Lets face it, the money talks. All businesses have a responsibility to weigh the
costs of the goods and services they purchase versus the risk and reward.
You now have a very difficult decision to make weighing in the risks and rewards
of the company you choose blended with the financial cost. A decision only you can
make, but keep in mind lower cost usually comes with a hefty price. And, while you get
what you pay for is often true, it should not mean that you pay out the nose for an IT
company more believing you are getting more.
Cost should not be the highest priority, while it should rank highly, at least two
of the above areas should come first to ensure you make a decision that is best for your
company, and as a bi-product it will in the long run be what is best for your budget.

Summary

You must make a list of priorities, and gauge which IT company best fits your company’s needs.
Some of the above many be in consequential to you, but at least 2 of the above areas should come
above the financial cost of the service.

 Do they know your industry enough to make recommendations?

 What is the contract length?

 How thorough is their management, once a month manual (human) check-up, Just automated

monitoring, preventative maintenance, or a pre-proactive all of the above approach?

 What kind of staff do they hire technicians or engineers?

 Do they only provide some Antivirus, or do they enlist the following services\products; firewall,

anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-spam and e-mail security, Secure DNS?

 What’s their average response time, and do they have metric to prove it?

Thank You for downloading Solomon IT’s “How do I select a new IT service and solutions provider?” We
hope this leads to a great choice and fit for your company, even if it’s not Solomon IT.